


Save me the small things

by LadyKG



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, No regrets though, Sakura and Obito are friends, Time Travel, a compilation of short drabbles, all of them are connected though, seriously i want to write more with these two, so apparently this has become a thing that im going to write, so upsides i guess, this is super short and wow i should be writing my other stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-08-17 11:32:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16515605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKG/pseuds/LadyKG
Summary: If someone had told her she would be considered an international threat while on the run with an ex-terrorist in order to save the world when she was a genin, she would have laughed and called them crazy.





	1. Chapter 1

Sakura clutched her stomach, the building ache not at all helped by the press of her arms, but she couldn’t make herself care. The dappled forest floor shown green and yellow through the blurring tears that pricked the edges of her eyes. Ribbons of light snuck through her chest, golden warm and shining, they stripped through muscle and sinew with an ease that shook her body as it escaped on the breath it forced her to release.

It was all she could do to ride out the peals of laughter ringing from his lips.

“It’s really not that funny,” Obito said, petulant but humored from her side as he scanned the Bingo book’s pages. “At least it’s more creative than the Pink Demon.”

“Whatever your say _White Shadow_.” Sakura swallowed the bursting flares of laughter in her chest, meeting a blank gaze with sparking green eyes. They stared at each other for a moment longer before Obito’s lips twitched.

“They didn’t even use good pictures.” Sakura leaned forward at Obito’s words, looking at the book once more and taking in the renditions that the villages decided to print.

“They made my nose so big,” she muttered, her hand going up to cover the feature.

“And my scars are on the wrong side.”

Sakura hummed, taking in their Bingo book entries one last time before promptly throwing the book in the fire. Taking a sickly large amount of satisfaction in watching each page burn to ash.

“We needed that.” Obito told her, voice dry as dust.

“We’ll buy the next volume.” She said, eyebrow raised in challenge as she rose to her feet, hitching kubikiribocho onto her back as the fire popped sending burning bits of the book into the air. They should move out soon if they wanted to scan the entire border of Fire Country by the week’s end. Zetsu was a slippery bastard, and the last of their problems to be solved.

Obito opened his mouth to answer, but the flicker of chakra signatures froze the words on his lips. It had been a while since anyone had caught up to them – with how many villages had a price on their heads, she was surprised it had taken this long, really.

“I’m calling Konoha.” Obito said before she even ready her chakra.

“You called Konoha last time,” she huffed, but let herself fall into a position at his back, fists at the ready – there would be little use in fighting with kubikiribocho in such a small space, after all. “I call Suna.”

“We’re not even near the desert,” he snorted as the enemies drew in closer.

“But we were there last,” she pointed out, chakra simmering in her coils.

They were both wrong, as it turned out. Their attackers were missing-nin who most likely wanted to cash in on the bounty on their heads after seeing them in a town a bit north from their current position. They crumple within the first minute of the fight.

“They weren’t even jounin level,” Sakura said with a frown, “what were they thinking?”

Obito didn’t answer, but Sakura hadn’t been expecting one. They put the fire out before they left, the searing sizzle of water dousing the flames settled something in her chest that she hadn’t even realized was restless at all.

If someone had told her she would be considered an international threat while on the run with an ex-terrorist in order to save the world when she was a genin, she would have laughed and called them crazy. But that was when she believed in the will of fire as more than propaganda, and that time travel was as impossible as Naruto’s death. Back when Madara hadn’t risen from the grave and wrecked destruction through the Allied Forces. Back when Team Seven was whole and alive and war was a concept from history rather than her reality.

Back when something so small as laughing wasn’t a privilege.


	2. Chapter 2

“I miss sex,” she announced to the ceiling. The water stains didn’t answer, but when she jabbed her elbow into the soft side of the person sitting next to her in their shitty motel bed she received a grunt in reply. With a huff she flipped onto her stomach, propping her head on her arms as she stared at her companion. “Obito,” her voice came out on a sigh, “I miss sex.”

“I’m not having sex with you.” The words were deadpan, dryer than the protein bars that they had eaten for lunch.

“Ew,” Sakura scrunched up her nose, “don’t even _say_ that, dicks are-.”

“Better than-.”

She covered his mouth with a glare, “We are not having this argument again.” Slowly, she pulled her hand away, letting the silence last for all of a second before she flipped back to stare at the rotting ceiling. “I miss it.”

“I heard you the first two times,” he snorted, not looking up from the scroll he was reading – they had stolen it from Kiri, in the hopes that it had any information they could use to track Zetsu. “We’re above a bar, I’m sure you can find a girl.”

“They’re all civilians.”

Obito glanced at her, the look lasting a long moment before he went back to reading the scroll, “I miss them too.”

“At least Kakashi isn’t underage.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, “And you’re, what, six years older than Ino?” Obito shook his head, “By the time she’s curious it won’t matter.”

“By the time she’s curious my younger self will have gotten her head out of her ass,” Sakura snapped back before she could think better of it, only able to watch with a regret as Obito tensed. Pulling herself onto her knees she placed a hand on his shoulder, a small smile that was all bitter loss and understanding playing across her lips, “Sorry, that was… I shouldn’t have said that.” Because Obito’s younger self was dead. A hand through his chest and a blade to the neck. They had buried the body two dimensions over, in a desert wasteland, eyes plucked out.

The silence lasted a few moments, heavy – but then again, it always was.

“Obito,” Sakura said, licking her lips, “we can do this, right? It’s worth it, right?”

“Saving the world?”

“Losing them.”

Obito paused, and Sakura knew without looking that he was staring into space, searching for an answer that wasn’t there.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Time?”

“Five in the morning,” he said, glancing at the clock.

“Fuck.”

Obito snorted at the curse, although he couldn’t fault Sakura the sentiment. It had been three days of restless nights and she had nearly split her skull from exhausted coordination. They had dragged themselves to the nearest Inn, but even the cushion of a proper bed couldn’t seem to convince sleep to take them.

For all that Obito’s body could last without sleep or food for a few days, that didn’t mean he didn’t _feel_ it. That the discomfort it brought didn’t itch under his skin and make his head lighter with each passing hour.

Still, even with a bed under him and a pillow cradling his head, sleep did not come. It fled with an elusive glee that mocked his tired eyes. With a sigh through his nose he closed his eyes again, determined to not let the promise of rest escape this time.

“Time?”

“Sakura.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

Sakura laughed, high and bright in a way that drew a chuckle from his own lips. Quiet settled soon after, heavy as it always was. The dark of the room ate away their vision in shadows that Obito shut his eyes to. Tomorrow they would head North, hoping to catch up with the latest rumors.

They knew. Both of them. That running after rumors like this was a fruitless endeavor. Zetsu had already confirmed that Sasuke was his next target. But for both their sanities they avoided the thought. Avoided the admission that it was out of fear they did not return to Konoha. Out of fear that they wandered instead of settled. Chased instead of waited.

It was simply to waste away the-

“Time?”


	4. Chapter 4

The alcohol burned against her lips and warmed her from her throat to her chest. It made something buzz right over her heart that she couldn’t quite describe – or maybe it was simply that she was too gone to care to give the feeling a name.

Obito was next to her, as he always was. And Sakura knew that he did not approve of this particular habit of hers. When had drowning the pain ever worked, he would ask. And Sakura knew he was right, because she always cried through the night when she had enough in her.

But Obito wasn’t going to take this from her. This small, little thing, that gave her some semblance of balance in their otherwise unstable existence.

And wasn’t that what this was all about, she thought. Coming back. Trying to change it all. To save them all.

It wasn’t for the big things – the villages, or the thought of a lasting peace. No, that was more Naruto’s speed. It wasn’t for the big things, at all.

It was for the way Naruto smiled into each bowl of ramen. For the way Kakashi’s eye crinkled, head tilting. For the way Sasuke snorted as he rolled his eyes. For the way Ino’s fingers felt brushing Sakura’s hair back. For the way Lee challenged Neji, and Neji never said no. For the way Tenten taught them all the best way to polish a weapon. For Hinata’s kind eyes, and kinder determination. It was for Shikamaru’s lazy demeanor, and Choji’s cooking.

It wasn’t for the big things – the will of fire, or treaties between nations. No, that was something they could never _do._ Not properly, at least.

They didn’t come back to change the world for something so pointless as saving it for itself.

No.

They came back for the small things.

For the taste of alcohol that wasn’t meant to chase bitter emotions. For a night of rest and dreams that didn’t leave them screaming. For romance, and sex, and those that they loved and loss.

For laughter.

For happiness.

For joy.

For the small things, that really weren’t all that small once they were gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Sakura used to love reading, back before the war started, when she was a genin and the world was simpler. She loved the stories that were weaved with such simple words, and the way they could tugged at her heart with such ease. She loved the smell of the pages and the ink and the way it felt to hold the weight in her hands. She loved the satisfaction in finishing a book, and loved the sense of loss at coming to an end.

Sakura used to love reading, back before the war started, back when she had time for such things.

And maybe that was why she ends up in the small bookstore in Konoha. The one that sat next to a few teashops. There was a nostalgia to it that Sakura thought had long since left her, but it seemed she was wrong.

Obito stood to her left, watching as her fingers ran over the spine of books.

“You’re avoiding it,” he said flatly. The accusation was true.

“So are you.” Sakura met his gaze with a raised eyebrow. They were both right. Sakura was here to avoid everything, and Obito followed her for much the same reason.

It was easier… except, she was never one to give into weakness, at least she thought of herself as such. She let her hand fall back to her side her fingers twitching there until Obito’s own wrapped around them tight.

“Like ripping off a bandage,” he told her, but Sakura saw the hesitance in his eyes. Recognized it because she knew it was reflected in her own.

But she nodded, and they were swept away in a burst of kamui.

Zetsu was in Konoha. They’d known for months that the creature was here, in the Uchiha compound – plotting, manipulating, hiding. They’d known for months. And yet they never bothered to follow that knowledge because it meant coming back. Back to the place with all the small things. Back to the place with all the big things too.

They’d known for months that Zetsu was in Konoha.

And it was only now that they bothered to follow that knowledge all the way to the Hokage’s office, Tsunade’s figure cutting an impressive sight with the backdrop of Konoha through the window.

Obito’s hand tightened in hers and Sakura used the weight of that support to give her strength.

She met her shishou’s sharp gaze, ignored the chakra in the air, ignored the ANBU and their weapons. She met her shishou’s gaze and pealed back the wrap around her forehead. She met her shishou’s eyes, “We need to talk.”


End file.
